- Usha Vance is a Yale educated lawyer married to Ohio GOP Senator JD Vance
- READ MORE: Donald Trump taps JD Vance has his running mate
Usha Chilukuri Vance is stepping into the spotlight. The stunning woman is the wife of JD Vance, the Republican Ohio senator tapped to be Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate.
But Vance is an extremely accomplished woman in her own right: an Ivy League educated litigator who once clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts.
The pair first met while they were both students at Yale Law School in 2013. In his book Hillbilly Elegy, Vance describes her as his ‘Yale spirit guide.’
They married on year out of law school in 2014 and had their first child, Ewan Blaine in 2017.
Their first son, Ewan Blaine, was born in 2017. They also have a second son, Vivek, and welcomed a daughter Mirabel in December 2021. The couple is raising their three children in Cincinnati.
JD and Usha Vance with two of their three children Ewan and Vivek
Vance was recently asked if she is prepared for all eyes on her if her husband is tapped as Trump’s running mate.
‘I don’t know if anyone is ever ready for that kind of scrutiny,’ Vance told Fox & Friends last month. ‘I think we found the first campaign he embarked on to be a shock. It was so different from anything we had ever done before, but it was an adventure.’
She told Fox she’s not raring to change anything in their lives right now but she really believes in her husband and loves him, so they will see what happens.
The daughter of Indian immigrants, born Usha Chilukuri, Vance was raised in the suburbs on San Diego by a mechanical engineer and biologist. She has said she was raised in a religious Hindu family.
From California she moved across the country for college and went to Yale University where she majored in history. After that, she continued her studies at University of Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar.
At Yale Law School, she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal and managing editor of the Yale Journal of Law & Technology.
Vance is now an attorney at the San Francisco and Washington, DC law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson where she focuses on complex civil litigation and appeals.
Usha and JD Vance with their three children. They welcomed their first child in 2017. Their daughter Mirabel was born in December 2021
Usha Chilukuri Vance standing with her husband JD Vance as he arrives for his 2022 election night party after being declared the winner of the Ohio Senate race on November 8, 2022
The couple celebrating on election night in 2022 after Vance won the Senate race. She described his first campaign in Ohio as an ‘adventure’
When her husband jumped into the 2022 Ohio Senate race, Vance could be spotted throughout the state at campaign events.
She also appeared in his first campaign ads where she talked about Vance’s upbringing and having him by her side as a husband and parent to their children.
She’s described him as an incredible father and her best friend.
JD Vance kissed by his wife Usha on the night of the Ohio Senate primary on May 3, 2022
At Munger, Tolles & Olson, Vance’s cases have focused on a wide range of topics including higher education, local government, entertainment and technology.
Before joining the firm, she clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
She also clerked Justice Brett Kavanaugh back when he was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia as well as Judge Amul Thapar in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.
At Yale Law school, she also participated in the Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic, the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, and the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project.
When asked last month what issue she would focus on if she were to become Second Lady, Vance declined to answer. She said they were getting to far ahead of themselves to even consider it, and they were focused on their family.
